Photo Album 

Sometime during the winter and in a rush of athletic enthusiasm and self delusion I entered the Northampton Standard Distance Triathlon and, registered as a hopeful qualifier for the World Championships 2008.
 
I reinforced my intent by doing very little training.  Reality dawned at the third Bournemouth Aquathlon when I came in a spectacular last.
 
I reassessed my fitness, ‘downgraded’ to the sprint, did a deal with Peeps – encouragement and support for a night at The Northampton Hilton, and set off with renewed enthusiasm
 
Northamptonshire is rather pretty, and the venue- Grendon Lakes - is lovely.  There’s a huge car park close to a spacious, well laid out and very well marked transition.  Registration was painless, efficient and friendly and the local club house welcoming with a nice bar, big telly (rugby!) and showers.
 
The Race – swim in a nice clear lake.  I departed from my default setting of starting, rather apologetically, from one of the flanks and got right in the middle of the pack, prepared to swim over anybody who got in the way and not whinge if anybody swam over me.  It was a great swim, a very useful draft to the first turn and a smooth last leg to the slippy exit – big helpful hands heave you out and propel you down a long (400mt’ish) run to transition.  
 
T1 helped by the long run in as I was now used to the vertical again, feet all but dry and wetsuit more than half off.  
 
Out on my sort of bike ride – lovely scenery, only short hills (and not too many of them), no difficult corners and superb marshalling (competent, helpful cheerful and encouraging – each one was firm in pointing the direction and had an encouraging remark and a clap as we passed); uncharacteristicall y, I worked quite hard and spent more time on the tri bars than off them.
 
My best ever T2 – I sped up to the dismount point with my feet out of the shoes, did a rather neat ‘step-through- and-run’ dismount and rushed into transition with all the pose and grace of hippo in ballet shoes.
 
The run is a dream – flat (like in pancake), off road with spectators and cheerleaders (complete with pom-poms and ‘Whooies’ to speed you round the two laps.
 
Good fast finish down a tunnel for High Five and Bananas.
 
A Great day –  and for those who don’t have any faith in my philosophy of a surfeit of optimism and body fat, check out the BTA web site for the Vancouver Qualifiers (Sprint 60 – 64)!!